• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Optimata Completes Successful Breast Cancer Clinical Study: 70% Prediction Accuracy Offers New Hope for Cancer Patients

Posted on: Wednesday, 18 October 2006, 09:00 CDT

Optimata Ltd. announced today the successful results of a clinical study for the prediction of individualized patient response to chemotherapy drugs. The study used Optimata's computerized technology known as the Virtual Cancer Patient Engine (VCP).

The results show that the prediction accuracy of the VCP was 70 percent. This is substantially higher than the current prediction accuracy of oncologists which is estimated to be 25-30 percent.

Dr. Abhik Mukherjee from Nottingham City Hospital who worked on the study, said in a press release issued by Cancer UK, "Every cancer is slightly different and every patient will respond to treatment differently. We wanted to find a way to predict how patients would respond to a particular drug in order to limit their side effects and give them the best chance of beating their disease."

In the study, researchers programmed Optimata's Virtual Cancer Patient Engine to model how individual breast cancer patients would be expected to respond to chemotherapy drugs. The VCP looked at how the drugs would affect the growth of the cancer, how the drugs would behave in the body and how the cancer cells would respond to the drugs. Researchers then compared the predictions of the VCP with the actual response of the patients to test the effectiveness of the technology.

"We found the computer programme accurately predicted how the patients responded to treatment in around 70 per cent of cases," said Dr. Stephen Chan, Head of the Department of Clinical Oncology at Nottingham City Hospital in the U.K. and the director of the study.

Kate Law, director of clinical trials at Cancer Research UK, said, "This was a very interesting early study that could potentially have a big impact on how cancer patients are treated in the future. Tailoring treatments to individual patients will ensure the best possible outcome for every patient."

Guy Malchi, CEO of Optimata, stated, "We are thrilled with the results of this study which validates our technology and offers new hope for cancer patients. In the clinical setting our VCP technology offers the prospect of made-to-measure, safer and more cost-efficient use of therapies. In the global drug industry the VCP already is transforming drug development as more and more biopharmaceutical companies are using our technology to predict the outcome of drug candidates."

The trial was aimed at testing the accuracy of the VCP in predicting the response of patients, suffering from cancer that had spread from the breast to other vital organs (Metastatic Breast Cancer or MBC) to one of two commonly used chemotherapy drugs, single agent docetaxel or doxorubicin. The primary end-point was to determine whether the VCP simulations retrieved the clinical scenario in terms of both response and toxicities.

Clinical, radiological and pathological parameters, including pre-metastatic and metastatic treatment profiles were retrospectively collected from 33 MBC patients with liver, lung and lymph node metastases, treated by either doxorubicin or docetaxel.

The computed treatment (virtual) effects were then compared with the actual clinical response.

Predictions of the response of individual metastases in the validation set to each particular treatment were clustered into "response" and "no response" groups. The preliminary result of the prediction accuracy of VCP to actual response was 70 percent.

The VCP is based on mathematical modelling and computerized simulation of the interplay between biological, pathological and pharmacological processes underlying drug-patient interactions.

"The results of this study show the enormous potential the VCP has as a tool for treatment individualization," said Prof. Zvia Agur, Founder and Chairperson of Optimata.

About Optimata

Optimata Ltd. is a science-based, interdisciplinary company, dedicated to the development of predictive biosimulation technologies -- Virtual Patient Engines.

Founded by Prof. Zvia Agur, a world-renowned biomathematician who has pioneered methods of using computer modeling for optimizing treatment protocols in cancer and pathogenic diseases, .Optimata offers a rational approach for the selection of patient populations and the optimization of drug scheduling and dosage. Optimata's technology is based on a computer-generated method of accurately predicting how individual patients or patient populations will respond to a compound. The technology combines computer models of human physiology, specific diseases and the therapeutic impact of a compound. The in-silico technology enables drug developers to conduct experiments at an unprecedented scale, enabling an unlimited number of "virtual trials"to be carried out on an almost infinite combination of dosages, treatment schedules and patient population characteristics. Major pharmaceutical company clients include Eli Lilly. In addition to the trial described above, the company is currently completing a bio-simulation clinical trial on individualized breast cancer therapy in collaboration with Soroka University Medical Center in Israel.

For more information about Optimata visit www.optimata.com.

Source: Business Wire

More News in this Category